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Roadmap for Qt 5.4? [released]

asked 2015-01-13 14:06:23 +0200

updated 2017-06-01 13:16:26 +0200

r0kk3rz gravatar image

Qt 5.4 introduces the new Qt Webengine. This an essencial feature because Qt Webkit lacks many features and has many bugs that makes it quite impossible to publish good HTML5 apps on Jolla. In my case, I'm looking forward to it to make my game "Green Mahjong" work better on Jolla. (For the moment, it sucks a lot because of QtWebkit).

My question is: when will jolla support Qt 5.4?

EDIT (07/06/2016): Looks like some progress is starting on a Qt5.6 Upgrade

EDIT: Upgrade to Qt 5.6 was released in version 2.1.0 Iijoki

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The question has been closed for the following reason "released in a software update" by r0kk3rz
close date 2017-06-01 13:14:18.531563

Comments

3

Judging from this answer: we underestimated the work needed to successfully complete the Qt5.2 transition. It may take some time, 5.1 was released 18.06.2013 I dont think they will jump over 5.3 (May 2014), to go to 5.4 (release Dec 2014) things/code need time to mature when you are rolling it out to lots of users. NB: only a guess

emva ( 2015-01-13 16:38:20 +0200 )edit
12

OTOH the amount of changes between 5.0 and 5.2 has been much bigger than the difference between 5.2 and 5.4. Also there is quite a lot of stuff in 5.4 that Sailfish OS could benefit from, such as Qt Bluetooth with Bluetooth LE support or the already mentioned Qt Webengine.

MartinK ( 2015-01-13 16:48:54 +0200 )edit
2

That answer also mentions "On a positive note, we have amended our integration process to avoid the pitfalls we faced during this transition. We have also enabled better ways to develop new features and technology in parallel with the main codebase, allowing integration only when code is relatively stable." so updating to newer Qt probably won't take as long as it did this time.

Btw you could also ask this question in the mailing list for developers: https://lists.sailfishos.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/devel

nthn ( 2015-01-13 18:24:11 +0200 )edit
8

Just a link: https://lists.sailfishos.org/pipermail/devel/2014-June/004595.html. Note the sentence: "For our Qt 5.2 branch, we still have a lot of patches, but all of these patches were upstreamed to 5.3 and 5.4 before they were back-ported into our 5.2 branch, ...". I'd think that Qt 5.4 support will come rather sooner than later, and it's not going to be the same kind of mess that happened with update 9.

Jouni Ahto ( 2015-01-13 20:36:47 +0200 )edit

I would guess that Qt5.4 could come by the time Sailfish 2.0 is out.

simosagi ( 2015-01-14 12:25:09 +0200 )edit

3 Answers

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22

answered 2015-01-15 15:38:40 +0200

Robin Burchell _ w00t gravatar image

Short answer: There are no immediate plans to switch to a new major version.

Long answer: There is a lot of other work ongoing at the moment, and unfortunately, as a small company, not an infinite amount of resources to throw at things.

Upgrading something as crucial (and large) to the Sailfish platform takes a significant amount of time and effort. Sailfish exercises Qt (and QML/Quick) much more extensively than most Qt-based applications out there in the world. As a result, when running new code, we tend to run into a lot more bugs than most other users out there, and unlike regular Linux distributions, we need to fix as much of that as we possibly can so as to make sure that our customers have a smooth and painless experience with it.

This took a significant amount of time and effort for the 4.8 to 5.0 transition (before the product launch), and subsequent 5.2 transition, it's still not a fully complete effort in some ways. But it had significant benefits for Sailfish, so a commitment was made to do that. But engaging in the same effort again, so soon, would mean potential delays to other ongoing work, so although as a Qt advocate and developer I would want to push forward to the latest and greatest, I can't see it happening right now.

As for QtWebEngine: I've had the chance to use and explore it a bit myself over the past few months, and while I am impressed at the strides it has made in some directions (rendering quality and such), it is a largely unproven technology. It has never been used on Wayland at all in a product capacity (though I think some work has happened to enable it for 5.5 for that), and given our hardware constraints are fixed, we would also need to do some performance metrics and measurement to make sure that the device can capably handle it. The license would also need some consideration, as currently LGPLv3 is not permitted on device.

Again: due to the already large amount of ongoing work, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

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Comments

4

That was a very complete and sincere answer! Thanks.

DanielBeck ( 2015-01-15 16:52:54 +0200 )edit
1

@Robin Burchell _ w00t

Are you back on board??

ApB ( 2015-01-15 17:58:40 +0200 )edit
2

For that kind of explanations from Jolla devs I usually visit this site! Thanks

Mądry ( 2015-01-15 18:53:19 +0200 )edit
3

The license would also need some consideration, as currently LGPLv3 is not permitted on device.

Does this mean, (L)GPL 3 will be allowed at some point in the future? Or does it mark a dead end for higher Qt versions?

Blizzz ( 2015-01-16 00:06:30 +0200 )edit
2

Is there any way for community people to help with the transition to, say Qt 5.6?

ArmsOfSorrow ( 2016-03-27 19:09:12 +0200 )edit
21

answered 2015-07-02 11:12:29 +0200

r0kk3rz gravatar image

updated 2015-07-02 11:13:27 +0200

Qt 5.5 has now been released, with a number of rather useful sounding features for Sailfish Devs

Highlights Include:

  • Bluetooth LE API is now Finalised
  • Improvements to QML/C++ Integration
  • GStreamer 1.0 Support for QtMultimedia
  • QtMultimedia Integration with OpenCV
  • QML TreeView Item

Whilst this doesn't really change the answer from @Robin Burchell _ w00t above, as time marches on the benefits start to outweigh the risks and I hope that once the Tablet is released that a Qt platform upgrade enters the roadmap.

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1

Interesting. @Robin Burchell _ w00t mentions one of the hurdles for Qt5.4 is the licensing as LGPL v3 is not permitted on the device. However, in the blog post it is stated that

And finally, we have Qt Open Source, our open source version that you can use under the terms of the LGPL (version 2.1 and/or version 3) or GPL.

Could LGPL 2.1 or GPL be used on the Jolla device, or is the situation the same for these as for v3?

nick75 ( 2015-07-02 11:38:53 +0200 )edit
1

I think the main concern with newer L/GPL licences is the "Tivoisation" clauses, meaning that any third-party that wants to take on sailfish would not be able to lock the bootloader or otherwise prevent changing the software on the device.

As a user that sounds great, but as a device manufacturer id like to make my own decisions on the matter rather than being dictated to via a software licence.

r0kk3rz ( 2015-07-02 11:57:54 +0200 )edit

I would like to think that missing slightly the original deadline for the tablet to start shipping would be in someway related to this and that the "big nasty company" Jolla just didn't tell us everything. Especially the new Qt seems to have GStreamer 1.0 support. I hope that our beloved sailors had something to do with it.

Jouni Ahto ( 2015-07-02 19:19:21 +0200 )edit

QT 5.5 also has improvements in the multimedia API (new class example : http://doc.qt.io/qt-5/qabstractvideofilter.html).

Emmanuel ( 2015-08-11 14:27:55 +0200 )edit

It should be great to have Qt 5.5 for "developer" and keep old Qt as system library. That way we can use latest Qt to publish our App to the store without using system libs.

Luca ( 2016-02-22 12:06:32 +0200 )edit
19

answered 2016-02-22 12:25:07 +0200

nick75 gravatar image

Qt 5.6 Beta was released in December 2015 and final release is targeted for Q1/2016.

The biggest news is problably that this release has a Long-term support (LTS). Never the less, there is a long list of new features in this release.

As being a LTS release, I think this would be a very suitable base for Jolla. Given the previous experince of huge work to upgrade Qt version, this will probably not be any easier. However, with the 3 years of support, this will give a foundation to rest on for quite a while into the future.

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2

Why don't we can keep system lib as now (to solve license problem) but put Qt 5.5 to the device only for app? For example we could have Qt 5.5 in /opt/qt551 so that application can link there...

Luca ( 2016-02-22 12:35:47 +0200 )edit
5

"Added the Qt Location module providing maps, navigation and places APIs for Qt Quick"

This is another big new as it would permit to see map-based apps be accepted in the Store (almost 3 years after the launch... :/ )

Sthocs ( 2016-02-22 13:51:47 +0200 )edit

It will make more sense to jump to 5.6 (since it is an LTS) release 3.03.2016.

BUT the accepted answer still holds water since Jolla had "some problems".

Add at least 8-13 months from the QT release date to we can see it in our phones.

emva ( 2016-02-22 17:57:48 +0200 )edit
11

I just got word from a Sailor on IRC that a Qt5.6 upgrade is currently being worked on, so good luck Jolla!

Also progress is happening on git.merproject.org

r0kk3rz ( 2016-06-07 11:08:18 +0200 )edit

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Asked: 2015-01-13 14:06:23 +0200

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Last updated: Jun 01 '17